Join us for the UK publication of Kei Miller's Things I Have Withheld, a moving, lyrical & provocative work on the meanings of silence.Kei Miller’s new essay collection Things I Have Withheld is a moving, lyrical and provocative work exploring the meanings of silence and the things we cannot say.

The online book launch will include special guest appearances from Booker Prize-winning novelist Marlon James and celebrated poet and academic Tanya Shirley, both of whom will be in conversation with Kei. There will be an opportunity for guests to ask the author questions.

Kei will be reading from his essays and exploring the themes which unite the collection: sexuality and identity, race and class, poetry and artistic freedom, art and appropriation, our bodies, and more. He will be introduced by Ellah Wakatama, his editor at Canongate, and the event will be hosted by Melanie Abrahams, literature curator and founder of Renaissance One.

This event is a collaboration between Canongate, Renaissance One and Libreria.

Things I Have Withheld (Canongate, May 2021) is a collection of provocative, lyrical and moving essays exploring the silence in which so many important things are kept, and how we process all the things we suffer in silence, and what it means to breach it: to risk words, to risk truths.

Throughout the essays, Kei dexterously explores a range of topics including sexuality and identity, race and class, poetry and artistic freedom, art and appropriation, our bodies, and more. He powerfully and imaginatively challenges us to interrogate what seems unsayable and why – our actions, defence mechanisms, imaginations and interactions – and those of the world around us.

20% book discount offer: guests are able to receive 20% off the RRP price of Things I Have Withheld courtesy of Libreria, to purchase a copy, click here